How do I teach him to ask to go out?

[ChickensHaveNoEyebrows]

The pup is now 18 weeks old. I haven't had a single accident in the house during the last week, because the back door has been wide open. He has happily gone out when he needs to and done his business in the garden. Yet, if the door is shut (as it was just now), he pees in the hall. He doesn't 'ask' to go out (Jas taps the back door, or softly woofs). Any ideas on how I can train him to 'ask' to go out? I didn't have to with Jas, he just did.

Some dogs just don't. Ours just stands quietly by the back door. Having the door open constantly won't have helped his housetraining. You need to go back to basics again.

Bugger.

I have heard of a few people hanging bells on the door handle for the pup to jangle when he wants to go out. There's even a website that sells them, here. You can clicker train him to use them.

The only downside is, if he finds using the bells really rewarding and/or susses that you open the door every time he jangles them, he might drive you bonkers constantly jangling them.

We used Poochie Bells at the back door. It took just a couple of days for ours to get the hang of it.

The down side was she soon realised every time she rang the bells, we let her out, so she was ringing them just for the fun of it!

I haven't had a single accident in the house during the last week
Well congratulations chickens
And what about the pup? :o

There will be cues prior to him peeing you have to look closely for them - going into the hall will be one often pacing or circling. Shutting the door more often will make the cues more obviously. He is only 18 weeks though still quite early. Dogs are also like children some just get it others take longer.

Yeah, we'll get there. He's the most adorable little chap. I'll forgive him the odd puddle.

Chickens - we brought home a 2+yo from rescue last Autumn not knowing if she was housetrained. It transpired that she wasn't - what was worse is that she had learned that you do stuff inside, not outside (we think she was in a barn or shed or something). The first few months we were up and down like a yoyo - every time she got up and went into the hall we followed, and took her out if it looked as though she needed to go out. She now will pace backwards and forwards between the back door and where you are to tell you - and stands and LOOKS at you in a way that makes it very clear that some action is required on your part - we can now go through the questions and if she does need to go out she immediately starts off towards the door at 'do you want to go down the garden'. There will be signs but they're not obvious to you yet - and he'll learn to communicate with you in his own way I'm sure. We didn't go for the bells (I've heard other people use the keys hanging in the door for their larger dogs) just for the reason that she would regularly go down the garden just for a nice romp down and biscuit when she got back